MBBWL Press Conference On Maryland Wine Shipping Tomorrow
Marylanders for Better Beer & Wine Laws (MBBWL) is holding a press conference to circle the wagons and announce some good news. The press conference will be held Wednesday, February 3rd at 3 PM in the Southern Maryland Delegation Room (318) of the House Office Building The as-yet-un-numbered direct wine shipping bill has gathered a “majority of sponsors in both the House of Delegates and State Senate.” Roll blockquote!
The bill would allow both wineries and retailers to ship up to 24 cases of wine to a Maryland resident per year and follows the protocols existing in other states for age verification and tax collection. There are roughly 6,500 wineries in the US. Only about 15% of these wineries can currently sell their product to Marylanders. Should the legislation become law, the estimated economic benefit to Maryland would be $1.5 million per fiscal year, largely from the collection of Maryland sales and excise taxes.
Much more wine shipping coverage coming, as well as coverage on other wine related bills facing the legislature this session.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:11 pm
Hey! I haven’t been writing about MD wine for very long (you can tell from my site that it’s very much a work in progress!), but had the good fortune to be able to get some live coverage from this conference (with schools closed, my wife made the trip to Annapolis and took notes) and put it up on my blog. Would love to catch up sometime and exchange notes on the issues if you’re also looking to cover pending MD wine legislation.
Your site is great, BTW, and was part of my inspiration to start my current project! I’m hoping to get really in-depth with the local stuff, kind of like what these guys are doing in Virginia: http://www.virginiawinetime.com/ while also adding in some of the industry-level coverage that I see on sites like yours and http://anythingwine.wordpress.com/.
-Matthew